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03/27/09
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The Time Machine (2002)
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Reviews Counted:31
Fresh:6
Rotten:25
Average Rating:5/10
Consensus: This Machine has all the razzle-dazzles of modern special effects, but the movie takes a turn for the worst when it switches from a story about lost love to a confusing action-thriller.
Theatrical Release:Mar 8, 2002 Wide
Box Office: $56,684,819
Synopsis: Scientist and inventor Alexander Hartdegen is determined to prove that time travel is possible. His determination is turned to desperation by a personal tragedy that now drives him to want to... [More]
Starring: Guy Pearce, Jeremy Irons, Orlando Jones, Samantha Mumba
Director: Simon Wells
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Reviews for The Time Machine
Top CriticIf H.G. Wells had a time machine and could take a look at his kin's reworked version, what would he say? 'It looks good, Sonny, but you missed the point.'
11/06/02
Top CriticOne of those staggeringly well-produced, joylessly extravagant pictures that keep whooshing you from one visual marvel to the next, hastily, emptily.
07/20/02
Top CriticIf it's remembered at all, it will be as a time capsule of early-21st-century blockbuster cowardice and redundancy.
03/12/02
Top CriticThey gave The Time Machine a major overhaul and ended up with a clunker.
03/09/02
Top CriticAmazingly stilted before accelerating into its exciting finish.
03/08/02
Top CriticThe film is weirdly disjointed and uncertain as to tone.
03/08/02
Top CriticSimon Wells, whose other films include the animated The Prince of Egypt and Balto, manages to gut all the gee-whiz from the practically foolproof time-travel genre -- despite being H.G.'s real-life great-grandson.
03/08/02
Top CriticMidway through the movie, just when it seems that it might amount to something interesting, we're suddenly transported to the set of a very bad remake of Planet Of The Apes.
03/08/02
Top Critic... there's something wrong with a time-travel movie that allows an audience's interest to drift so that we have time to worry over where he's parked, and whether he remembered to take his key.
03/08/02
Top Critic... an agreeable time-wasting device -- but George Pal's low-tech 1960 version still rules the epochs.
03/08/02
Top CriticNot exactly H.G. Wells, but sturdy and effective.
03/08/02
Top CriticEverything else that the filmmakers have done in their thoughtless, lazy way to 'improve' the original formula serves only to leach the drama and excitement out of the underlying story.
03/08/02
Top CriticThe Time Machine is stupid -- too stupid for the impressive special effects or the competently directed action sequences to wash away the bitter taste.
03/08/02
Top CriticThe far future may be awesome to consider, but from period detail to matters of the heart, this film is most transporting when it stays put in the past.
03/08/02
Top CriticWatchable if never exciting, competent yet hardly exceptional, the picture is content to assume its innocuous position in the cinematic landscape.
03/08/02
Top CriticIt will delight newcomers to the story and those who know it from bygone days.
03/08/02
Top CriticBears resemblance to, and shares the weaknesses of, too many recent action-fantasy extravaganzas in which special effects overpower cogent story-telling and visual clarity during the big action sequences.
03/08/02
Top CriticThe Time Machine is a witless recycling of the H.G. Wells story from 1895, with the absurdity intact but the wonderment missing.
03/08/02
Top CriticThe truth is that Wells wasn't that penetrating a writer when it came to probing character or the human heart. His speculations and gimmicks were what propelled his books. The film, given the chance to deepen its source, instead falls back on its gadgets.
03/08/02
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